State of New York
Department of State
Committee on Open Government

The staff of the Committee on Open Government is authorized to
issue advisory opinions. The ensuing staff advisory opinion is
based solely upon the information presented in your correspondence.

Dear Ms. Griffin:

I have received your undated letter, which reached this office
on January 29.

You described a series of problems relating to your efforts to
inspect voter registration books maintained by the Village of Lake
Grove. Specifically, the Village imposed time limitations
regarding your ability to inspect the records. Further, the
Village apparently denied access to a list of registered voters,
which differs from the list of registered voters maintained by the
County Board of Elections.

In this regard, I offer the following comments.

First, by way of background, §89(1)(b)(iii) of the Freedom of
Information Law requires the Committee on Open Government to
promulgate regulations concerning the procedural implementation of
the Law (see 21 NYCRR Part 1401). In turn, §87(1) requires
agencies to adopt rules and regulations consistent with the Law and
the Committee's regulations.

Section 1401.2 of the regulations, provides in relevant part
that:

"(a) The governing body of a public
corporation and the head of an executive
agency or governing body of other agencies
shall be responsible for insuring compliance
with the regulations herein, and shall
designate one or more persons as records
access officer by name or by specific job
title and business address, who shall have the
duty of coordinating agency response to public
requests for access to records. The
designation of one or more records access
officers shall not be construed to prohibit
officials who have in the past been authorized
to make records or information available to
the public from continuing to do so..."

Section 1401.4 of the regulations, entitled "Hours for public
inspection", states that:

"(a) Each agency shall accept requests for
public access to records and produce records
during all hours they are regularly open for
business.

(b) In agencies which do not have daily
regular business hours, a written procedure
shall be established by which a person may
arrange an appointment to inspect and copy
records. Such procedure shall include the
name, position, address and phone number of
the party to be contacted for the purpose of
making an appointment."

Relevant to your inquiry and the foregoing is a decision
rendered by the Appellate Division, Second Department, which
includes Lake Grove. Among the issues was the validity of a
similar limitation regarding the time permitted to inspect records
established by a village pursuant to regulation. The Court held
that the village was required to enable the public to inspect
records during its regular business hours, stating that:

"...to the extent that Regulation 6 has been
interpreted as permitting the Village Clerk to
limit the hours during which public documents
can be inspected to a period of time less than
the business hours of the Clerk's office, it
is violative of the Freedom of Information
Law..." [Murtha v. Leonard, 620 NYS 2d 101
(1994), 210 AD 2d 411].

Second, the Freedom of Information Law pertains to agency
records, and §86(4) of that statute defines the term "record"
expansively to mean:

Therefore, even when a different agency, i.e., a county board of
elections, maintains the same records as the Village (which does
not appear to be so in this instance), the Village records would be
subject to the Freedom of Information Law, and the Village would be
required to respond to a request for such records.

Lastly, as a general matter, the Freedom of Information Law is
based upon a presumption of access. Stated differently, all
records of an agency are available, except to the extent that
records or portions thereof fall within one or more grounds for
denial appearing in §87(2)(a) through (i) of the Law. From my
perspective, a voter registration list or equivalent records that
might be used to comprise such a list would be available, for none
of the grounds for denial could justifiably be cited to withhold
the records.

In an effort to enhance compliance with and understanding of
the Freedom of Information Law, copies of this opinion will be sent
to Village officials.